Home Entertainment 2002
Hi-Fi and Home Theater Event

Saturday

 

  The very interesting Ayon Audio Dragon loudspeaker ($19,000) has a sensitivity rating of 96dB by using an AER full-ranger driver and rear mounted 15" woofer. The enclosure has side porting to further help extend the bass response. As for amplification, Ayon's Sunrise integrated stereo amplifier ($6,000) uses VAIC 320 to produce 27 watts per channel, though a normal 300B can be inserted for those who desire the sound of a WE300B or the JJ/Sophia mesh plate. Also, this unit can be operated as a monoblock amplifier. Also seen here is the Hovland pre-amplifier.

 

Paradigm had a complete home cinema setup that included their Studio 100 ($2,400) that have 1" pure aluminum dome tweeter, 6.5" poly/mica impregnated midrange, and two 8" mineral-filled polypropylene woofers. Dipole surrounds were employed while their subwoofers are servo controlled.

 

Thor Audio had their TA-2000 pre-amplifier/phono ($9,500), TPA-60 monoblock tube amplifiers ($16,000, pictured above) and DAC-1000 ($8,500). The TPA-60 features gorgeous blue lit highlights in front of the four El34 tubes. Other tubes in this design include two 12AX7 and one 12AU7. Rated frequency response is 10Hz to 60kHz with a maximum power output of 60 watts.

 

Kimber Kable had an impressive booth showcasing their Select cables.

 

Sennheiser's totally awesome Orpheus ($15,000) headphone system. Their representative told me that there is only one more set of Orpheus to be purchased as the limited manufacturing of this product means that only a very few people will be able to have purchased this product.

 

Musical Fidelity had quite an impressive looking line p. From top to bottom is their CD Pre24 player ($2,995) that is also a pre-amplifier with digital in/out, A3.2 upsampling 24-bit CD player, A 3.2 dual monoblock amplifier and M25 units.

 

Atma-Sphere's MA-1 MK.2.2 OTL amplifier ($9,800/pr, the outermost units) feature improvements in the power supply and transformers have also been done on their entire line. The center unit is their S30 ($2,850).

 

Classic Audio Reproductions had their Project T-1.1.1 large floorstanding hornspeaker ($15,750) and smaller Project T-5.5 ($9,600).

 

VPI's new top-of-the-line TNT turntable (around $10,000) had the JMW Memorial tonearm and looked ever so incredible. It uses two 24-pole motors that are 7.5 degrees offset from each other so the pole of one motor is opposite of the other. This makes the turntable, theoretically, act as if it has a 48-pole motor. Impressive!

 

Here are more VPI turntables for you analog junkies.

 

Manley Labs Snapper ($4,250/pr) is a 100-watt monoblock using four EL34 and a single 12AT7. Now if it came with a red chassis we could call it… Oh, nevermind :-)

 

Walker Audio's Proscenium Gold Reference turntable with air bearing arm and platter includes an automatic air suspension ($24,200) to insure that floorborne and other vibrations do not negatively affect the critical needle/record interplay. This table is directly connected to the new Walker Audio Reference phono stage ($10,000).

 

Silverline Audio's new La Folia (the name of a Portuguese dance) is a four-way design ($8,000) using a 1" Dynaudio Esotar tweeter, midrange is the DynaudioD76AF, mid-woofer is the ScanSpeak 7" driver, while the woofer is a 11" Focal 11KV. The overall frequency response is 22Hz to 35kHz with a 92dB/W/m at 8 ohms. The midwoofer is mounted in a sealed box while the rear-firing woofer is in a porter section.

 

Chesky has decided to enter the loudspeaker market using ultra-high quality, yet due to selling it only on the Internet, it retails at ($3,995). A 1" silk soft-dome tweeter is mate with an isobaric 6.5 woofer.

 

GamuT's ultra-cool large solid-state amplifier and also their new CD 1 ($2,995) uses the Crystal CS4390 24-bit, 128-times oversampling and extremely high parts quality through and through. Both RCA and XLR outputs are provided while the entire design keeps a close eye to insure vibrations that can add adversely affect the performance of the player and minimized.

 

Blue Circle once again had their "Music Pumps" 25-watt monoblock amplifiers ($799). Go out and buy these for your wife at www.classicpumps.com.

 

Audes has a new NS 1.1 tubed monoblock amplifier ($3,999) that produces seven watts per channel from two EL34 output tubes operating in "Class A" push-pull mode. Overall frequency response is from 30Hz to 16kHz.

 

Merlin's VSM Millennium loudspeakers ($8,150 in Ruby Heart Red, $7050 in normal finish), a batter powered BAM module and Joule Electra VZN-100 hundred watts OTL monoblock ($13,000/pr). Cabling is by JPS Labs.

 

Click here for Sunday's coverage.